Fight For Their Right: The First Lesson I Learned From A 2 Year Old

By Oskar Cymerman | @focus2achieve | BAm! Radio Network EdWords Blogger

This is a follow up post to “Breaking Sticks: Awesome Life Lessons From A 2 Year Old” in which I will relay how I plan to, and you might as well if you are a parent or an educator, apply these lessons in my roles as a father and a teacher. Please click on the title above for more context as it is a quick 5 minute read you will enjoy.

(You Gotta) Fight For Their Right (To Party) aka Let Them Play!

“Now boys, don't get into any trouble while mommy and daddy are gone. And DON'T make a mess!” - The Beastie Boys

I have gone through much material on the importance of unstructured play and I understand and agree with it 100%. Thing is though: I did not truly get the idea, observe it first hand, and experience its magic until the day I went on a walk with my 2-year-old son. I consider myself fortunate to be a father and a teacher. But I am also a learner. We all are. The learning never stops. Sometimes it’s just more profound than other times I think. Last week, I was lucky enough to see him play and learn in action and actually be aware of what was going on underneath as my son was exploring; literally picking up new skills as he was picking up sticks and learning about how the universe works as he was playing with them. I was also lucky enough to just let him play in his own way; get down, dirty, and completely immersed in his own world.

As adults, we have a tendency to think we know better, because we have more experience at…. Uhm…. All kinds of stuff? And while we are not the intended killers of play, I think all of us, at least at times, are real buzz kills for our kids. We do that by too often sticking our noses in their business and telling them what to do, because we have a very clear definition (to us) of what the world is like in our heads.

I might have gotten lucky in my realization of what was going on and Adam was spared from me spoiling his education with my schooling. Play can be messy. Play can be dirty. But unless real danger is present parents ought to let children play. Just look how focused or absorbed or excited kids of all ages (and adults too) can be when they play! Especially when they create their own amusement. And I am not a proponent of allowing kids to do whatever they conjure up. I think a good rule to follow here, both at home and in school, is to ASK yourself these 3 questions I learned while taking a Minneapolis Community Ed webinar series class on parenting toddlers:

Is it APPROPRIATE? Is it SAFE? Is it KIND?

And if you’ve ever been a parent or an educator you can probably attest to the fact that kids of all ages have a little toddler in them, so the ASK rule applies all the way through college. Shhhh! Just don’t say it to their face. And, don’t tell them I said that either :)

Of course, our definitions of Appropriate, Safe, and Kind will vary greatly, so for the love of all you hold dear Be Reasonable! Next time you consider stifling your children’s/students’ play ask yourself: is it because of the preferences, biases, and fears you have or is there something really wrong or recklessly dangerous about the whole thing? For example, driving or rock climbing may be dangerous, but if common sense is exercised…. You know what I mean.  

Why is this so important?

While on our “Breaking Sticks” walk I could observe some of the things Adam was learning, because somehow I wasn’t just “hanging out” with him, which is awesome in its own right, but I was able to pause and process on a deeper level. However, how much did he learn that I cannot even fathom? I mean think about it: There's gotta be a lot of learning going on there that I don't know about because it isn't obvious! How much knowledge was safely tucked away in his precious little brain to be pulled out and used later in application to things both related and unrelated to the task during which it was learned?

So it is important to foster unstructured play with the kids at home and in early education. Dr. Martha S. Burns of Scientific Learning explains in her TEDx Enola Talk that the brain architecture that supports learning is formed through more relaxed interactions between parents and children in the early childhood, which allows the teachers to be more effective “brain builders” later. Among others, she names “play” and “having fun” as activities that build the neural "understructure” to get children ready to learn in school. Moreover, the diminished number of such experiences is precisely what leads to the achievement gap manifested in children from low SES families, as their brains are not yet prepared for formal learning when they enroll in school.

So how can this knowledge be applied in middle school and how do I plan to use it as a high school teacher? Here’s my entry for the understatement of the month to get this discussion going: “Students learn best when they are motivated and excited about the things they are learning.” I believe the trick to achieving this is to find a way to give student access to the materials and resources THEY WANT TO PLAY WITH and WE WANT THEM TO LEARN FROM all at the same time. How? Find Out! Talk to them. Ask them what they like. Don’t assume they all like the Biebs. Cater the instruction to them. Based on the subject you teach, it might not always be possible, but look for ways to incorporate things relevant to their lives as much as possible. This requires effort, but ends in excitement and many rewards, which leads to dopamine release in their brains and yours. And who doesn’t like a little DOPE-a-mine?

Numerous studies suggest that dopamine release increases memory retention, and if dopamine is released when we are having fun, being excited, and learning things we perceive as cool, it might serve us well as educators and help our students’ neural connections survive to make learning fun and teach about novel and cool things.

Check out my recent Chemistry Literacy Lesson and the article I used it with titled: Study finds chlorinated pools and pee are a match made in harmful gas heaven. Gross? Definitely! In fact, “disguising” and “gross” were the most prominent and emphatic words used by both students in my 4 chemistry classes and teachers at our district’s EdCamp session I led on Reading Informational Texts. But while most students disapproved of “going in the pool,” they actually enjoyed the article and got into heated discussions about the topic. Why? Because it was relevant to what they do. It was novel. And it was grossly exciting!

I realize that I will not always be able to do super exciting cool lessons, due to standards and the abstract nature of some chemistry. And that’s okay. However, I believe that if I commit to the conscious pursuit of such authentic, novel, and fun learning and provide many such experiences for my students, I will make a much larger impact. So I commit. Right here, right now. And you should to. C’mon! You know you want to :). Please feel free to use the presentation I linked to here anyway you please. Maybe use the reading/writing strategies with a fun article that’s relevant to what you do? Or maybe use the whole lesson, article included, and see how your students respond?

“Knowledge is not power. It is only potential for power. Because to know and not to do is to not know” - Darren Hardy

So do it. Do something. If you’re already doing something, do more. Fight For Their Right.

Kick it!

Okay. So "porno mags" and cigarettes may be too much “fun” for school, but the song is meant to inspire, so you can aspire. Please share this post and share a strategy or two you use in your parenting or teaching in the comments below. SIGN UP for my NEWSLETTER if you would like to receive the third post in this series and many other future tips on how to help your students become better learners and how to increase your impact as an educator.

And Above All Remember: You have the power to change the world. Use it often.

Breaking Sticks: Awesome Life Lessons From A 2 Year Old

By Oskar Cymerman | @focus2achieve | BAm! Radio Network EdWords Blogger

Adam’s little feet were scampering on the sidewalk as only a two-year-old’s feet can as I quickly followed to keep pace with him. As soon as he saw his first stick that day he stopped, picked it up, looked at me excitedly and shouted: “Mam patyk tata!” (I have a stick daddy!). He’s my kind of dude. Adores being outside. Loves playing with sticks. Picks them up whenever he can. Carries them around. Hits objects, sometimes people, with them. Brings them home where he usually forgets about them. But today was different. For both of us.

It’s April and the maple trees are budding in Minnesota. It was a warm enough day that I didn’t mind him sitting on the pavement and exploring. He sat down and started using his newfound tool to pluck the maple buds that fell off the branches above out of the cracks in the sidewalk. While doing this, the stick broke. He looked at me and said: “Zepsułem,” which means "I broke it" in Polish. He continued digging the buds out and the thin dried up stick broke once more, at which point Adam seemed to lose interest in the buds and decided to focus on sticks.

He noticed a big tree with a goldmine of broken twigs lying around it down the block and darted toward it, me in tow. While in the past he’d pick one or two up, now he was picking them up in bunches as if he were gathering kindling for a fire. This was quite interesting, because I know that he has no idea about this sort of use for fallen sticks. Of course this wasn’t why he was picking so many of them up, but I immediately got an idea that he will now be able to, and absolutely love helping me gather wood for the fire when we start going camping in a couple of months. We’ll brave the mosquitoes and poison ivy together….

He carried the sticks onto the sidewalk, threw what had to be a dozen of them down, and immediately proceeded to breaking them into smaller pieces. He did not just break each stick into two. He kept breaking each until it got so small his little hands could no longer apply enough force to fragment it. I was so fascinated with all I was observing and learning that I don’t recall what exact phrases he was using to talk about what he’s doing, but I know he was making associations between “big” and “small” and the fact that bigger sticks are more difficult to break.

At some point he picked up the biggest bark-stripped “white stick” as he called it and decided to keep it as he could not snap it. Did he know that this is the best tool? Yes! Maybe not consciously, but I believe on some primal instinctual level he knew that this is the best stick to have. Not that he will have to ward off sabertooths or hunt mammoth with it, but still….

Kasia was finishing cooking dinner and told us before we left she’d come out to walk with us, which Adam must have just remembered as he said “mama na spacerek” (“mommy for a walk”) and started running back toward our home. He tested his stick against the concrete of the building and used it to bang on the metal ventilation shafts sticking out of the outer wall. What are you doing? “Stukam.” He was learning what sounds were given off by hitting different materials. He knows how and the purpose of knocking on the door now, but he figured out he can amplify his knocking by drumming the stick on the glass storm door, which I promptly removed from his path. He proceeded to use his stick to knock on the wooden door behind, and was elated to see mama open it and come join us in the fun.

This was the absolute best most awesome walk I’ve ever had with my son. It covered maybe 50 yards, lasted about an hour, and taught me things I’d never be able to learn by taking a formal course. I’ve been on many walks with my son and wife before, but somehow, on this one walk, I was more present, more aware, more ready to learn. This one walk, I truly believe with all my heart, changed me forever. It gave me the opportunity to see how I can change the approach with my son and students and brought about the true understanding of why and how unstructured play can be incorporated into learning. Now, it’s up to me to apply the information I’ve learned and improve my craft.

So what have I learned?

A lot! However, 2 things stick out (-:

Let The Kids Play! Because if we just let them, and don’t adulterate their play with our influence, hinder it with our often baseless fears, or spoil it with our “knowing better,” they will learn a lot more and, because it was acquired by self through experimentation and immediate application in several activities, the learning will be of the lasting variety.          

Our Kids (Our Own and Our Students) Are Our Teachers as Much as We Are Theirs. Adam learned a ton of things on our walk together, and I only described the first part of it before my wife joined us. But I myself learned things that I could not have imagined before, by simply being there with him and watching him play. These are things I intend to use consistently on my life-long learning journey that leads to becoming a better father, educator, and human being.

The follow up post to this one will be about the Importance of Unstructured Play, Students as Teachers (or maybe Teachers as Students?), and the Beastie Boys. The Beastie Boys? Yes! It might be early (or late) but you read that right: The Beastie Boys. And THIS SONG will be featured! How can you pass that up? Please give me a like or comment if you found this post useful to what you do. SIGN UP for my NEWSLETTER if you would like to receive tips on how to help your students become better learners and how to increase your impact as an educator.

And Above All Remember: You have the power to change the world. Use it often.